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futurism

Founded in October 2013, Lafayette Anticipation of the Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette will open its doors in 2018 in the Marais district of Paris. This public interest foundation aims to support contemporary artists, design and fashion, recognising their potential to participate in social change, and also to anticipate that change.

Lafayette Anticipation is structured around 'production' and is the first multidisciplinary centre of its kind in France. A place of experimentation and research, Lafayette Anticipation offers new tools for developing prototypes, implementing projects and in addition to exhibitions, a variety of forums - encounters, conferences, conversations, performances, screenings, visits, workshops and an online presence, will facilitate exchanges between artists and various publics. Lafayette Anticipation will be permeable, a constantly evolving space, motivated by a desire to surprise and be surprised.

I contributed to:

anticipations: a manifesto on the challenges of contemporary production in the arts

The publication concludes the pre-launch programme organised by the Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette which begun in October 2013 - 2016. It presents the institutional and curatorial research initiated by the Fondation through production residencies, exhibitions, commissions, workshops and events as well as through numerous projects in France and abroad.

The Taipei Biennial 2012 takes as its point of departure the ancient Chinese monster known as Taowu, whose evolution has been traced by the literary historian David Der-Wei Wang in his book The Monster That is History. Wang shows that somewhere in the course of Chinese history, writers and historians began to identify the vicious monster Taowu with history itself, since it could foresee and thwart human intentions. Wang suggests that it is modern Chinese history in particular that lends itself to a reading through the Taowu, against the backdrop of a twentieth century characterized by utopian aspirations notoriously overshadowed by systemic violence.

In 2006, as part of a group of artists, researchers and academics, I was invited to research and imagine the future centenary of two industrial towns. The project was curated by Jakub Szreder and Martin Kaltwaser.

Both towns evolved from the middle of the last century, and both were planned around the image and function of the factory. Since 1939 Wolfsburg has been the home and global headquarters of the Volkswagen Group, and since 1947 Nowa Huta developed around the formerly Lenin and now Sendzimira steelworks.

As part of Sequelism; Possible, probable or preferable futures at the Arnolfini I will screen Museum Futures: Distributed, a machinima record of the centenary interview with Moderna Museet’s executive Ayan Lindquist in June 2058. It explores a possible genealogy for contemporary art practice and its institutions, by re-imagining the role of artists, museums, galleries, markets, manufactories and academies.

The screening will be followed with a discussion led by Max and Mariana of Latitudes curators of Sequelism.

Sequelism is a cultural investigation into how representations of the future affect the present.

Museum Futures: Distributed will be screened as part of What are we going to do after we’ve done what we’re going to do next? is a curatorial film selection by Latitudes for The Uncertainty Principle, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain.

The Uncertainty Principle' is a programme produced by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) divided in four parts, which through conferences, performances, cinema, video programmes and artist presentations sets out to analyse the multiple ways of generating a hypothesis.

What are we going to do after we’ve done what we’re going to do next? consider the notion of memory in reverse, prognosis, doubt and strategic foresight within the arena of futurology, in particular narratives of time travel. How we might look beyond the present with or without recourse to established genres?